Peter’s Story
Section One, Episode Two
Continuing on with the version of the story written in October-November 1998,
for self-therapy purposes.....
Another other small step that I had taken, back in the 1980's, that was part of the pattern of leading into the transformation into the “New Peter”, was vegetarianism. As a child, I was never much of a meat eater. I would not eat poultry at all, nor any form of offal, and the smell and taste of fat was repulsive to me. I was also a hopeless fisherman, I really enjoyed the experience of fishing, but when it came to removing the hook from the fish's mouth........
On 31 December 1983, I had my last meal of red meat, a fillet steak at Chez Eelco Cafe in Nelson. I remember a few months later going to the Post Office Cafeteria at lunch time to find that everything that was left contained red meat. I thought "One corned beef sandwich will not hurt." But as I sat down to eat, something from deep inside me said "If you eat this, you may as well just go back to eating meat all the time!". I stood up and went up the street to find something else to eat.
By some time in 1987, I was completely vegetarian and very health-conscious. I remember being all set to convert the whole world to my new religion of vegetarianism, (organically grown of course). A defining moment was when I tried to convert to my way of thinking a friend who had had a heart bypass: I was convinced that I knew what was right for him! Well, he had other ideas! The world did not want to be saved!
In early 1989, at the age of 42, I attended my first Karate class. I was vaguely aware that there was a very popular Karate dojo in Nelson: I had sometimes seen the Karate students jogging barefoot along the footpath, and my belief was that Karate was a rough, tough activity only suitable for young, very fit men. I became friendly with a business customer, who was a green belt in Karate, and I was intrigued because he did not seem to fit my mental image of a typical Karate student.
I attended my first class, and I was hooked. It was hard, very hard for someone as unfit as I was, but I stuck at it twice a week in the beginners' class. I vividly remember the agony of having to do push-ups (on my knuckles) and sit-ups in a grossly unfit 42-year old body! But I kept at it, and gradually it became part of my life. By mid to late 1990, I was attending an average of four to five classes a week and progressing through the grades, with a dream of being a black belt by the time I was 50. And I could have made it to black belt by 50 if I had kept at it: I reached green belt by late 1991 in a little under 3 years.
Why did I throw so much energy into Karate for three years? Many reasons, including the benefits of becoming really fit for the first time in my life. I had played tennis and badminton for many years, and in the 1990 badminton season I remember beating several young men half my age without even taking my jersey off! These were young guys who were far better badminton players than me, but I beat them without even raising a sweat by literally running them off the court!
Karate also helped me enormously with my self-esteem and confidence. I had been a real wimp, both physically and emotionally, but now I had the confidence to walk down the street late at night past a group of young "hoons" with no fears for my personal safety. It was not so much that I thought I would ever have to defend myself (although I could have, if I had had to), it was more that my energy had shifted to a self-confident state where there was no way that I was going to attract trouble to myself.
The other reason, the real reason that I was there for, was because of the Karate Master who was my teacher. Shihan Andy Barber was a very, very special person. He was about my age, and he had been a black belt for over 25 years (in 1987, this was). He could be very tough when needed, but he also possessed a gentleness and humility which set him apart.
Shihan Andy would often stop the class and speak spontaneously and eloquently about the importance of being totally present in the present moment: of letting go of all regrets and resentments from the past, and of all fears and fantasies about the future; of being just present right here, right now, in present time. Shihan Andy was my first spiritual teacher, and being with him was a vital part of my spiritual awakening.
After my move from Nelson to Wellington in June 1992, I attended several classes at the Wellington Seido Karate Dojo, but it just did not work for me for several reasons: my heart was no longer in it, I was moving on; the commitment required to master the much more difficult skills required of a green belt, which I now was, was more than I was prepared to give; but most of all (with all due respect to the Wellington Seido Karate instructors, who were excellent) without Shihan Andy the energy of the experience just was not the same.
Click here to go to Shihan Andy's Nelson Seido Karate website.
Click here to go to the official website of the World Seido Karate organization, in New York.
Through Karate, I also became involved in the practice of zen. I would often attend the Sunday evening zen sits at the Karate dogo, and occasionally the 7am week-day ones. In January 1989, I attended two zen retreats under the zen master John Daido Loori from New York. Zen was my first introduction to a meditation type practice, and was a very important part of my journey.
I feel a great affinity with zen, but it is not my path to be a zen student. I still subscribe to two Nelson-based zen publications, and gain a lot from reading them. And in January 1997, I attended a zen dance workshop in Wellington with one of the senior monks from John Loori's monastery, the Mountains and Rivers Monastery, in upstate New York. It was wonderful to be able to integrate together the dance therapy work that I had done in recent times (as at 1997) with the zen practice that had been an important part of my spiritual awakening. And also to re-experience my zen teacher, John Daido Loori, when he gave a lecture at the Zen Arts Evening that was held in Wellington at the conclusion of the dance workshop.
Click here to go to the Mountains and Rivers zen monastery website.
Another important influence on my journey around the 1989 period was my brief association with network marketing as an Amway distributor. A woman came into my computer shop in Nelson, made a minor purchase, and also did the Amway prospecting approach of a "business opportunity".
When I heard the Amway presentation, I was intrigued. I could immediately see the potential of multi-level marketing, I instantly understood the concept and the power of such a system, and something was telling me that yes, I must give this a go. I kept getting the message "If I do not try this for myself, I will be forever left wondering what if........"
My enthusiasm was not matched by my wife Jeanette. She was totally uninterested, to the point of being cynical. However, I pressed ahead, joined up as a distributor, bought a whole lot of product, and attended the weekly support meetings. In my first month, I hit the 9 percent bonus level, which was incredible for the first month. But it did not last, in fact within a few months it was all but finished.
Looking back, I realize that in a strictly practical, monetary sense, yes, Jeanette was right, my involvement with Amway was a failure financially. But, I gained something much more important than mere money.
A little like my karate and zen experience, it was all about self-confidence, self-worth, etc. Through the Amway distributors' support organization, I was introduced to books like "Think and Grow Rich", "The Magic of Thinking Big", and "How to Win Friends and Influence People". This was my first introduction to the positive-thinking, personal-growth thing, and it was an essential part of my personal journey. I remember being really impressed by "The Magic of Thinking Big"; was it really possible to change one's life circumstances just by changing one's thoughts???
And for this I owe a lot to my sponsor in Amway, and to the other lovely people in the Amway Distributors Support Group who supported me in this.
Around this time, at the end of the 1980's, although still largely ignorant of personal development and spiritual development, I attended a one-day workshop in Nelson with Colin Sisson, the author and rebirther from Auckland. "Your Right to Riches" was the workshop, and Colin introduced me to ideas like the power of a thought system that looks at the world totally differently to what most of us believe in.
On 30 April, 1991, my 22 year marriage to Jeanette ended. It had been coming apart for several years, and the stress of the “business failure” was the final straw. I remember on many occasions us trying to sort out our “problems” by talking about the issues, but somehow we just never got anywhere. I vividly recall having this horrible feeling, like a weight pressing down on us, and being unable to do anything about it.
When I drove away that day, from the family home for the final time, after 22 long years of life as being “married with children”, it felt like a great weight was lifting from off my shoulders. I felt free! For two months I cruised around having a great time as a single guy, with not a care in the world.
Click here to continue on with Episode Three of this (1998) version of the story.
